The new set explores some themes that’ll feel familiar to any who’s caught, oh, a few seconds or so of news over the past few years.

“I wanted to explore the idea of walls,” Olney said about the LP. “What does a wall mean? What does it mean to be an immigrant who comes upon that wall as a wanderer, someone lost and alone?”

This Side Or the Other’s title has a bit of personal poignancy too — a longtime fixture on Holly Street, Olney now calls the other side of the river home (but still spends at least half his working time back over here, cowriting with fellow scribes and rehearsing with his mostly East Sider band).